What It All Means

Maybe it's the gulfstream jet and estate of a prosperity preacher. Or the megawatt bling and lifestyle of a celebrity. Or a small business that rings a bell at the corner of bull and bear because the sky's the limit.

What it all means is in the eye of the beholder.

What It All Means

We want it all, don't we?

The life.

The dream.

Everything.

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Because who doesn't, right? Milquetoasts, that's who. Too timid and uptight to take what's rightfully theirs. Prey, that's what they are. Too afraid to be wolves.

Chumps. Laughing stocks. Fools. Too gutless to stand up to bullies. How did we become the cowed?

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Except... other people's stuff isn't rightfully our stuff, is it? I mean: our property's ours, and theirs is theirs. Because fair's fair.

And... we aren't beasts. I mean: we don't scrabble in packs ruled by fangs and claws. Because living like animals is... inhuman. 

And... what bullies are terrorizing us? Basics who lie and roar and steal? Who strut and growl like one-eyed jacks?

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Come on.

What is this? The road to having the life? Manifesting the dream? Owning everything?

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In my day, I've smelled a lot of bullshit. No doubt you have too. This smells like a lie packaged as a promise that has nothing to do with prosperity or fame or pies in the sky.

For this is promise-selling 101. Selling us what we want to hear. Selling us what we want to buy. As for what is really being said? As for what is really being bought?

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That is everything and that is in the eye of the beholder.

So one poll will report that 'it' is financial realities. A study will conclude that 'it' is culture wars. A panel of pundits will opine that 'it' is religious beliefs.

Surprise, surprise, not:

none of this is it.

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Many of us don't want the life or the dream or everything. Many of us want the fiction.

That that is 'rightfully ours'. That 'bullies' are to blame for 'standing in our way'. That what's 'fair' is nuclear war. That what's 'honest' is naked criminality.

Because the fiction makes the rules. Including immunity from the rules for us and ours. Until the fiction makes the lie the truth.

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Which is to say: 

It can feel like blood and sweat and tears is for chumps and laughing stocks and fools when 'work smarter not harder' is the earworm of the day. It can feel like you won't make it unless you give up and give in. It can feel like the answer to having it all... is a promise.

As if 'the life' that's prosperity preacher sized; 'the dream' that's celebrity sized; and 'everything' that's the sky's the limit sized... is one monetary gift, one viral plot, and one hustle away. Because that's the promise, no?

I mean: really... That is a myth and everybody knows

only a sucker prospects for gold in a steaming pile of bullshit.

 

Epilogue

About bullies and basics.

Bullies and basics have bones to pick;

their grievances are epic;

and they're flooding the conversation as if they're the voices of reason.

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I know better. You know better. But 'the conversation' evangelizes otherwise. It spotlights every bone, every grievance, as if this is what it's all about and this is what it all means.

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This is how bullies and basics make narrative currency. To draw lanes. To move goal posts. To write the story they tell themselves.

So polls and studies and pundits, report and conclude and opine, such story: real and relevant and wholly believable.

Because the fiction makes the lie the truth. Including a myth packaged as a line that the villain is the victim who's saving us all... from villains.

M

Stand in My Way

The line in the sand isn't real. At least, not in the materially tangible sense. However, every person who's ever lived has felt such line, as hot and metallic as the blood pulsing in their veins.

Stand in My Way

You know the line in the sand -

it's very real, isn't it - ?

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Maybe, like The Big Sick, it respects the sacrifices of paved paths by adhering to dictates. Or, like Mirai, it's the color of a pair of pants in a moment in time.

Maybe, like The Fabelmans, it dismisses the suffering of others under a veneer of casual ignorance. Or, like Marry Me, it's pretending.

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There's a lazy embrace of lines in the sand like choosing heroism a la Black Panther: Wakanda Forever or ruthlessness a la Taken, that defines the line in the sand as if there's -

A pride. In a line. In the sand.

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But in reality, the line is, well -

a story we tell ourselves about where we stand.

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According to some, a conversation about lines in the sand can't ignore the role of silos and anonymity. Which is to say, some lines in the sand aren't lines, so much as -

Packs. Packs that value unreserved loyalty, above rationality. Or organized attacks, above compromise. Or the like.

Such that the merit of any such conversation, hinges on addressing silos and anonymity.

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But in reality, pack behavior is, well -

a story we tell ourselves about who we stand by.

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According to some, lines in the sand are virtue signals, favored by the indoctrinated. To be mocked as self-promoting piss and vinegar and -

Corrupt. Because assailing what's indecent is what's decent. If not denouncing what's false as weak and predatory and so much worse.

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But in reality, why we react, is -

a story we tell ourselves about why we stand.

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Maybe, the line in the sand isn't -

A line. In the sand.

Because a duck-walking, duck-talking, duck-acting not-duck -

isn't a duck.

Maybe, where we stand and who we stand by and why, is-

A story. We tell ourselves. To stand in the way. Of believing differently. Or expressing differently. Or aspiring differently.

Because standing in the way not being real -

is every person who's ever died on a hill for nothing but a line.

More

In the end, the stories we tell ourselves, are our reality. As narrators, we proclaim such stories, our 'truth'. The bedrock and spine of who we are.

As if

the blood in our veins - and

the line in the sand - and

our stand - and

the hill we die on - are not

fixed in place by our invention and imagination.

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In the end, we can author a courageous reality that -

Believes differently. Expresses differently. Aspires differently. 

Or we can tell ourselves myths about our powerlessness to rewrite the stories we tell ourselves. 

M

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Note

To the extent that the stories we tell ourselves inform our lines in the sand and our lines in the sand inform the stories we tell, the following are... movies: The Big Sick (2017), Mirai (2018), The Fabelmans (2022), Marry Me (2022), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), and Taken (2008).

M